Healthcare professionals may prescribe dosages of medications that require splitting of solid pill or tablet doses, typically in halves. Splitting may be used to divide higher doses of the pill so that the patient may divide one tablet into two doses, or a halved tabled into quarters, etc., thus saving money. Alternatively, a low dose of a medication typically available in a higher dose may also be prescribed. Pill splitting is often used with common medications for treatment of chronic conditions in humans and animals. A very large demographic of consumers are required to take prescription pills for all kinds of reasons. As the global population continues to live longer in both the industrial and emerging countries of the world, the volume of usage of prescription pills will continue to increase.
While some drugs, such as extended release formulations, may not be appropriate for splitting, many tablet doses can be divided for effective therapeutic use. Certain prescription medications may be indicated as approved for splitting in the accompanying prescribing information, or recommended as such by healthcare providers or dispensing pharmacists. Pill splitting is typically not done at pharmacies where drugs are dispensed, but is left to the patient consumer. As a result, there is a need among consumers for devices and methods to efficiently split tablets.
Pills intended for splitting, such as aspirin, may commonly be scored in the middle to provide a breakage line along which the pill may be more easily severed while providing dosage uniformity. Some tablets are excessively hard, which causes the halves to fly apart when the pill is cut. Some pills are not molded in a uniform shape, for example in a diamond shape, which makes it difficult to accurately locate a center line along which the pill can be cut to provide two uniform doses.
Certain problems exist that are common to all pill cutters currently on the market. Many include a V-shaped pill holder arrangement that holds pills of various sizes according to their alignment with the dimensions of the V-configuration. With pill cutters having a single receptacle designed to hold many pill sizes, i.e. “one size fits all,” the pill is not held securely in place, resulting in uneven cutting. Additionally such cutters cause many pills to break and/or leave residue. There is therefore a need for a pill cutter that secures multiple sizes of pills for cutting, and which cuts these pills accurately and evenly with minimal breakage, shattering or residue.
Examples of prior art tablet cutters include U.S. Pat. No. 8,590,164, which discloses a tablet cutter with a V-shaped pill holder arrangement for receiving tablets. The pill holder feature includes a slidable feature that includes arms that slide to hold the tablet in place over a slide track through which a blade is passed. U.S. Pat. No. 8,474,674 discloses a tablet cutter with a protected cutting edge, in that a guard slides over the cutting edge when the pill cutter is in an open position, and pulls back to expose the cutting edge when the pill cutter is closed. The tablet holder assembly disclosed by this patent is a V-shaped structure with a narrow end, an open end and centering guides for positioning tablets. V-shaped tablet holder arrangements do not allow for precise and secure accommodation of tablets of varying sizes. U.S. Pat. No. 7,503,471 discloses a tablet cutter formed by a cutting edge mounted on the bottom of a hollow column, in which the hollow column is capped by a transparent plate that prevents the cut halves of the tablet from jumping out of the column and also allows for viewing of the tablet cutting (score) line to align the cutting edge. U.S. Pat. No. 8,550,319 provides a device for cutting multiple tablets at one time that includes multiple blades and tablet nests with beds of different shapes and sizes. In this regard, when a selected tablet nest is inserted into the cutter, the blades facilitate cutting of multiple tablets of the same configuration and size at the same time.
There remains a need for a pill and tablet cutter for consumer use that provides easy selection of the pill size and shape without replacement of any part of the apparatus, and which also provides safe cutting of individual doses for the user's consumption.